Old Jews Telling Jokes

by Sam Hoffman

  “You see,” says Goldberg, “my nose is here, and the tip of my penis is in Poland!”

  6

  Food

  What’s in Our Mouths While We’re Talking

  THIS PAST YOM KIPPUR MY DAD WAS FASTING AND SO WAS I. OUR thoughts inevitably turned to food. From where we were sitting, we could see a poster announcing the new Jewish calendar year of 5770.

  My father turned to me and said, “It’s amazing, the Jews have been around for five thousand, seven hundred and seventy years.”

  I nodded, weak from hunger.

  He continued, “You know the Chinese just celebrated their year four thousand, seven hundred and seven?”

  I smiled. Even in my debilitated state, I knew where he was going.

  “That means the Jews had to go the first thousand years without Chinese food.”

  Of course, despite fondness for a Sunday night lo mein, the Jews have a rich culinary culture of their own. Granted, we’re not the Italians, but we’ve got a few winners.

  I recently took an informal poll, asking friends to name the quintessential Jewish food.

  The responses:

  “Pastrami on rye.”

  “Whitefish.”

  “Potato pancakes … it was the only thing my Jewish mother-in-law would bring to my house … my kids ate them like cookies! And that’s coming from a Catholic girl!”

  “Chocolate coins—the ones that come in the yellow net bag on Hanukkah.”

  “Chopped liver—’cause we kvetch about how bad it is for you and then ask for more crackers.”

  “Borscht and Mandel bread.”

  “Chulent … among the Hasidic set.”

  “Well, I’m not Jewish but I love apricot Hamentashen cookies.”

  “Challah.”

  “Noodle kugel.”

  “Kreplach [dumplings].”

  “My father still eats gefilte fish every morning. Ick.”

  “Nova on a bagel. Also lox.”

  “Brisket—I think we all use the same recipe passed down from our great-great-grandmothers. Of course the sauce is actually from the back of a Heinz bottle but no Jewish grandmother in her right mind would admit that.”

  Personally, I vote for chicken soup with knaidelach, or as they are more commonly known, matzo balls. I always loved them as a child, despite the fact that some cruel cousin showed me a cartoon depicting the poor animal known as the “matzo”—he looked a little like a sad moose—who had to sacrifice his very own testicles for this ethnic soup.

  In actuality, the balls, originally a Passover dish, are made of matzo meal (ground up matzo), eggs, oil, and water (or seltzer). They grow fluffy and round in a pot of boiling water and become a dense, delicious, sphere of, well, not-bread. They bob in the chicken soup, mingling with the little puddles of fat, the mushy carrots, and the limp stalks of dill—absorbing it all gently into their not-breadness.

  Why do I believe the matzo ball is the quintessence of Jewish food?

  Jews take great pride in divining rules from the scripture and then creating clever and ingenious ways to circumvent these rules. The matzo ball symbolizes that quality in the form of a meal. On Passover it is forbidden to eat bread or anything with flour. Except matzo. You can eat matzo because it hasn’t risen and it’s been rabbinically supervised. So we grind up the matzo until it’s not-flour. Then we combine it with eggs and oil and make this delicious not-bread. Then we complete it by soaking it in the most nutritious broth on earth—the broth that has literally become cultural shorthand for nurturing.

  It’s clever, it’s complicated, it’s a little bit sneaky, and it’s damn good for you.

  FRED RUBIN

  Fred Rubin says that words with a hard c or k sound are inherently funny. Buick is one of his favorites, especially as used in a particular scene in Annie Hall. He once wrote that “it’ll be a sad day for comedy writers when General Motors goes under.”

  Bagel and Lox

  Two old Jewish friends meet on the street. Max and Abe. Abe’s got a grin on his face.

  Max says, “What’re you so happy about?”

  He says, “I’ll tell you what I’m so happy about. Down the block, I found a brothel, and—in this brothel, if you go in there—you pay fifty dollars, you ask for Gina, a gorgeous girl comes out. Huge breasts! She takes your penis, and she puts chocolate ice cream, nuts, syrup, whipped cream … and then she eats the whole thing off. It’s fantastic!”

  So his friend says, “Oh, I think I’ll try that.”

  A couple of days later they meet on the street, and his friend is pissed as hell.

  Abe says, “What’s wrong with you?”

  Max says, “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. I went to that brothel that you recommended.”

  He says, “Yeah, so?”

  Max says, “I asked for Gina, I paid my fifty dollars, beautiful girl with big breasts …”

  He says, “Yeah, so?”

  Max says, “She takes my penis, she puts on cream cheese, a bagel, lox, onion, tomato …”

  He says, “Yeah, so?”

  Max says, “It looked so good, I ate it myself!”

  RICKY COHEN

  Ricky Cohen is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School. At Princeton he played on the golf team. As a judge he sat on the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court. He is also an avid sailor.

  The Chicken Case

  Schwartz had a chicken farm and he had a longtime customer, Gottesman’s Kosher Butchers. Gottesman had been a customer for years and they always did good business together but Schwartz noticed Gottesman was getting slow on his payments. When it got up to about eighty thousand dollars, Schwartz was upset about it and he spoke to Gottesman and said, “You gotta get me some money.”

  Gottesman promised him a ten-thousand-dollar check by the end of the month. The check never showed up. He promised him again; the check never showed up. So Schwartz went to his lawyers, McCarter & English, and told them to sue. They start suing. Gottesman files an answer. He says, “The chickens were no good, he didn’t give me as many chickens as he was charging me for, the chickens wouldn’t sell because they were so out of date, and anyway I don’t know anybody named Schwartz, and I paid him.”

  Schwartz is angered by this reply and tells his lawyers, “We’ll get him.”

  His lawyer says to him, “You know, Mr. Schwartz, we got a problem. You got a nice family business, but you got no records. You got no invoices, you got no sales records, you got no shipping records. You got nothing. We’re gonna go to court and it’s gonna be your word against Gottesman’s.”

  “I don’t care. The son of a gun is not playing fair with me. I’ll take care of it. I’ll send a chicken.”

  “You’ll send who a chicken?”

  “Judge Breitkof.”

  “You can’t send Judge Breitkof a chicken. He’ll be very insulted, he’ll be outraged, he’ll probably call the prosecutor, and you’ll never win the case with stuff like that with Judge Breitkof. Don’t do it.”

  “All right, no chicken.”

  They go to court, Schwartz testifies, Gottesman testifies, and at the end of the case Judge Breitkof says, “It would be an easier case to decide if there were records. But there are none, so I’ve had to judge the two men who appear before me and I find Schwartz to be a man of great character, complete credibility, Gottesman is obviously a dodgy character and not worthy of belief. Judgment for Schwartz: eighty thousand dollars.”

  As they’re going down the steps of the courthouse, Schwartz says, “Great lawyers you are. You wanted me to settle; you wanted me to take less than I got. I took care of it.”

  “What do you mean you took care of it?”

  “I sent him a chicken.”

  “You sent Breitkof a chicken?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That was a terrible thing.”

  “Yeah, I sent him a note along with it.”

  “Oh my God—what did the note say?”

  �
��It said, ‘Judge Breitkof, enjoy the chicken and your family should enjoy it, too, and there’s more where that came from if you know what I mean.’

  “And I signed it, ‘Gottesman.’ ”

  A Note About Chicken Jokes

  We shot the first round of these jokes in my home town of Highland Park, New Jersey. Several of the jokes—an inordinate amount, I thought—were about chickens. This made me curious.

  It turns out that New Jersey was once a veritable henhouse of Jewish chicken farmers. At a time when rural land was inexpensive, many survivors of World War II started farms in the state and their prosperity peaked in the 1950s.

  It was to be short-lived, however, as industrial farming and the increasing value of New Jersey real estate drove many of these farmers to either sell their land … or become real estate developers.

  DIANE HOFFMAN

  Diane Hoffman, my mother, was born in 1942 in Trenton, New Jersey. As I mentioned in the chapter “The Jewish Mother,” she is one of those super-capable women of her generation who can basically do everything. She started a career in hospital administration later in life, after I was already off to college, and eventually ran the radiology department at St. Peter’s, our local Jewish hospital.

  Broccoli

  A woman went into the greengrocer and asked the clerk for a pound of broccoli.

  “Oh, ma’am, I’m so sorry. We just don’t have any broccoli today. How about a pound of spinach?”

  “Okay. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

  “Maybe you didn’t understand. We just don’t have broccoli. How about a pound of string beans?”

  “Um. All right. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

  “Ma’am, we just don’t have any broccoli. How about some asparagus?”

  “No. I’ll have a pound of broccoli.”

  Exasperated, he said to her, “Ma’am, can you spell cat as in catastrophic?”

  “Of course. C-A-T.”

  “Can you spell dog as in dogmatic?”

  Perplexed, she says, “Of course. D-O-G.”

  “Can you spell fuck, as in broccoli?”

  “There’s no fuck in broccoli!”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you.”

  MIKE LEIDERMAN

  Mike Leiderman describes himself as a patriotic son of the Catskills, having been “conceived in Liberty and raised in Monticello.” Growing up, he snuck into every hotel nightclub he could when his parents took him to the mountains.

  Last Meals

  Three guys are going to be executed: a Frenchman, an Italian, and a Jew. They each get a chance to pick their last meal.

  They ask the Italian, “What do you want?”

  The Italian says, “Pasta primavera! I love-a pasta primavera!” So they bring him the pasta. He eats it, and they shoot him.

  They say to the Frenchman, “What would you like?”

  The Frenchman says, “Filet mignon.” They bring him a huge filet mignon and he eats it. They shoot him.

  They say to the Jew, “Well, what would you like?”

  The Jew says, “Strawberries.”

  “Strawberries? We don’t have any strawberries. They’re out of season!”

  The Jew goes, “Eh, I’ll wait.”

  CHUCK BERKE

  Chuck Berke grew up in Chicago, where he practiced law for several years. He then moved to Mexico to run a seventy-year-old health spa.

  Rye Bread

  Two elderly Jewish men are talking about their ailments. One of them says, “I haven’t been with my wife sexually in many years. It’s a part of my life that’s behind me.”

  The other man says, “I have sex with my wife three or four times a week!”

  He says, “Well, how do you manage that?”

  The other man says, “Rye bread.”

  “Rye bread? Where do you get such rye bread? I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

  He says, “There’s a bakery at the corner. Just go in and get a rye bread.”

  The man goes in and he says, “I’ll have a rye bread, please.” Then he thinks, and he asks, “Well, how many loaves of rye bread do you have?”

  She says, “We have five left.”

  He says, “I’ll take all five loaves.”

  She says, “You know, by the time you get to the fifth, it’ll be hard.”

  He says, “You know? Everyone knows!”

  CHARLOTTE SPIEGELMAN

  Charlotte Spiegelman is a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles. As far as we can tell, she is no relation to Eric. Or, if they are related, they certainly aren’t close.

  The Grasshopper

  A grasshopper walks into a bar and orders a drink.

  The bartender looks at him and says, “You know we have a drink here named after you?”

  The grasshopper replies, “You have a drink named Stanley?”

  JOE SIMONOWITZ

  Joe Simonowitz was born in 1931. Before he retired, he was a salesman for Western Bagels.

  Long Island Duck

  A lady goes into a butcher shop in New York. She says to the butcher, “I want a Long Island duck.”

  He says okay, and brings out a duck. She sticks two fingers up the duck’s tuches.

  She says, “This is not a Long Island duck! This is a Florida fowl. Please, get me a Long Island duck!”

  He goes in the back, and brings out another one. She proceeds to do the same thing. She says, “No! This is a Wisconsin chicken! If I want a chicken, I’ll let you know. I want a Long Island duck!”

  He goes in the back, brings out another duck. She does the same thing. She says, “Ah! This is a Long Island duck. Clean it, flick it, I’ll wait for it.”

  As he’s cleaning up the duck, she makes conversation.

  She says, “What’s your name?”

  He says, “Irving.”

  She says, “Where you from?”

  He turns around, drops his pants, and says, “I don’t know—you tell me!”

  7

  Husbands and Wives

  It’s a Thin Line.…

  BEFORE JEWISH COUPLES MARRY, THEY ARE REQUIRED TO SIGN A prenuptial contract of sorts known as a ketubah. The word ketubah is difficult to translate, but most scholars agree it means something to the effect of “here comes da pain.”

  A long-term marriage, in any faith, is a unique challenge. A couple needs to handle the pressures of raising a family, juggling careers and finances while still remaining intimate and interested in each other. It can’t be easy. Of course, in my marriage, with my particular wife, who is almost certainly going to read this at some point—it’s easy. I mean, couldn’t be easier. It’s easy like Sunday morning. But for most people, I would imagine, it’s got to be tough.

  Are we meant for monogamy? Does it really make sense to “mate for life”? Many animals do, including the gray wolf, the bald eagle, and the beaver. Can we learn any lessons from nature? Well, gray wolf and bald eagle could describe many older Jewish couples I know but clearly beaver has nothing to do with monogamy—so I guess that’s a bust.

  Long-term marriage obviously has its advantages. For men, these include never having to make another decision for the rest of your life; learning that your family, which you heretofore thought was fairly normal, is actually completely fucked up; and learning how to fail at being a mind reader. For women, it includes having a really big, hairy, smelly child to care for in addition to your children; learning how to field phone calls from the supermarket asking, “Which is the cereal that I like?”; and having a spare razor around to use on your legs.

  But couples that survive find their balance. They scratch each other’s itches and they provide something essential for each other. To an outsider they may seem like bickering old kooks who hate each other, but in fact they are bickering old kooks who hate each other who (really, actually) love each other.

  SYLVIE DRAKE

  Sylvie Drake joined the Los Angeles Times in 1971 and served as its chief theater critic from 1991 through 1993.
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  Report from the Doctor

  Sam Mendelbaum comes home from work and finds his wife scantily dressed in front of the mirror, preening herself.

  When she sees him, she says, “Oh, Sammy, I had the most wonderful report from Dr. Goldstein today. He said I had the body of a thirty-five-year-old, the face of a thirty-year-old, and the hair of a twenty-five-year-old.”

  And Sam says, “Yeah? What’d he say about your big, fat ass?”

  “Sam, we didn’t talk about you, darling, at all!”

  MAX ROSENTHAL

  Max Rosenthal was born in Berlin and was forced to leave shortly after Kristallnacht. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1939 and lived for many years in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.

  The Restaurant

  These two couples get together at one of their houses, and afterward the husbands are talking in the living room; the women are in the kitchen. One of the men says, “I was at this restaurant yesterday. For twelve dollars, you can eat five meals—it’s unbelievable! Fantastic! The food was delicious.”

  The other guy says, “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  He says, “Uh … hmm … the name of the restaurant. I forgot the name of the restaurant. Oh, wait. What’s that flower, that red flower? It smells good, it’s got thorns on it …”

  The other guy says, “You mean ‘rose’?”

  He says, “Yeah! That’s it! Hey, Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant?”